Ten shooters from Qatar will be taking part in the ISSF Shotgun Grand Prix which begins in Rabat, Morocco, today.
Five shooters will take part in the Trap and five in the Skeet. The event in Morocco will be the first international competition in almost a year’s time for most of the Qatari shooters.
The competition is included in the 2021 World Ranking and will help the shooters to collect qualification points for the Tokyo Olympic Games. Qatar’s skeet shooter Rashid Saleh Hamad was happy that he is getting a chance to compete at an international event after a long break.
“I am very happy that we are getting a chance to take part in an international competition. I am eager to give my best in the competition,” said the 34-year-old, who represented Qatar at the 2008 and 2016 Olympic Games.
Rashid has been in top form in the local events for the last three months, picking up one gold and one silver in the Amir Cup shooting and finishing fourth in the ongoing Qatar Shooting and Archery Cup.
In the ongoing Qatar Shooting and Archery Cup, he finished on top in the preliminary rounds but his elder brother, Masoud, finished first followed by 2012 London Games Bronze medalist and six-time Olympian Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah.
Besides Rashid and Reem al-Sharshani, the other Qatari shooters who will compete in Skeet events are Ali al-Mannai, Ali Ahmed al-Ishaq and Mohamed Ahmed al-Kuwari.
Besides the individual men’s and women’s section, the shooters will compete in the mixed event in both Trap and Skeet. The individual events of Skeet in both the men’s and women’s section will take place on Saturday.
In Trap, Mohamed al-Rumaihi, who has already qualified for the Tokyo Games, the only one to do so for Qatar so far, will compete alongside Nasser al-Hemaidi, Rashid al-Athba and Saeed Abusharib, in the men’s individual section.
Noura al-Ali will be competing in the Trap event. Al-Ali will compete in both — individual and mixed team events. The championship ends on February 5 with the mixed team event.
The Morocco event will kick start the 2021 season which will be followed by ISSF Shotgun World Cup, to be held in Egypt in February and the combined ISSF World Cups in March and April.
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